The business of sporting event gambling is a multi-billion dollar industry, especially in places like Nevada, and other geographical areas outside the United States, where gambling is legal. Due to the sheer magnitude of the gambling industry, there is an entire industry dedicated to providing gambling-related information, such as the current odds for various outcomes of a sporting event. Bookmakers use odds to balance the total amount of money bet on each team participating in a particular event, so as to protect the individual or establishment offering, or taking, the bet from losing money. For example, by establishing a point spread, bookmakers will aim to guarantee a profit by achieving a “balanced book,” either by getting an equal total amount of bets for each outcome or (when they are offering odds) by getting the amounts wagered on each outcome to reflect the odds. Accordingly, established point spreads, or betting lines, of any particular sporting event typically move right up to the beginning of an event, as the bookmakers attempt to achieve a balanced book.
Bettors (alternatively referred to as “players” or “wagerers”), take published odds into consideration when deciding which of two competing teams to place a bet on. For example, sporting events in which a powerful team is playing against a weaker team would obviously generate more betting for the more powerful, favored team. Therefore, odds are introduced to induce some bettors, whom would otherwise place bets on the favored team, to place bets on the underdog in the hopes of winning an amount of money greater than the actual wagered amount. These odds can be in the form of a point spread (often referred to as a “betting line” or “line”), which, for a bettor to win, require the favored team to win by a certain amount (or margin) of points or, alternatively phrased, require the non-favored team, or underdog, to lose by a certain amount less than the specified established margin. Again, these odds fluctuate as bets are taken, with the aim of having the total amount of money bet on one team equal to, or very close to, the total amount of money wagered on the opposing team, since the Sports books make their money on sports bets by collecting a commission, called the “vigorish,” or “vig,” or on losing bets. Individual Sports books taking bets can therefore offer different odds, largely depending on bets they have already taken. For a prospective bettor, the current odds for each sports book are important, since the bettor may want to bet on a game at certain preferred odds. Therefore, odds information for Sports books are an integral part of the betting process.
Different wagering schemes, or types of bets, have been developed over the years to provide bettors with a variety of betting options beyond that of placing a wager on a single game. Offering bettors greater variety results in greater revenue for the gaming industry. One such multiple-game wagering variation is known as a “parlay.” A parlay is a single wager that links together two or more individual bets, and is dependent upon all of those individual bets winning in order to win the overall wager. The benefit of the parlay is that the corresponding potential payoff is typically much higher than the respective potential payoff for individual bets on each game or event. A higher payoff results with the corresponding higher odds (or reduced likelihood) of successfully predicting the outcome of a combination of games or events. If any individual one of a group or series of bets in the parlay lose, the entire parlay wager is lost. Typically, if any of the individual plays of the parlay results in a tie, or “push,” the parlay reverts to a lower quantity of included games, with the odds (and respective payoff) decreased accordingly.
Another wagering variation is known as a “teaser,” wherein a bettor can combine his wagers on two or more different events (e.g., on two different football games). The bettor can adjust the point spreads for the games included in the bet, but realizes a lower return on the bets in the event of a win. A teaser is a type of wager typically used in sports betting, and most commonly in basketball and football. Again, this wager is a multi-event wager, allowing a bettor to choose a minimum of two teams (one for each of two corresponding games) up to a predetermined maximum number of games. The bettor is provided additional points in his favor, to add or subtract to each of the teams chosen, to improve the respective point spreads.
With regard to the parlay and teaser wagers, a bettor must win all of the games in order to collect, with the exception that, in some situations, a tie, or push, may not necessarily result in a losing wager. However, it is always the case that any one loss automatically negates the wager. For the purpose of clarifying this concept, let's assume that a bettor chooses to place a wager on a three-team parlay, picking: Team A (−7 points); Team B (−10 points); and Team C (+4 points), in respective Games 1, 2 and 3. In order to determine whether or not the bettor wins the three-team parlay, the bettor has to subtract 7 points from Team A's final score in Game 1, subtract 10 points from Team B's final score in Game 2, and is allowed to add 4 points to Team C's final score in Game 3. If, after applying the respective spreads, Team A wins Game 1, Team B wins Game 2, and Team C wins Game 3, the bettor wins the 3-game parlay wager. A typical payout for a three-team parlay is approximately 6-to-1 (alternatively referenced as “6:1” and “6/1”).
When a bettor plays a teaser, he is allowed to “shade” the number in his favor. For example, in the case of a 6-point teaser as applied to the above example, the original spreads change accordingly. That is, the bettor is allowed to add a fixed value of six points to his chosen team in each game. In Game 1, the bettor's spread, after applying the six points, becomes Team A (−1 point). In Game 2, the bettor's spread becomes Team B (−4 points), after applying the six points. In Game 3, the bettor's spread becomes Team C (+10 points) after applying the six points. Therefore, in each individual game the shade has made it easier for the bettor to clear the winning margin. However, since the player shaded the numbers in his favor, or advantage, the payout is significantly reduced since the risk of losing each game was greatly reduced. For instance, in the above hypothetical, the winning wager payout would drop, approximately, from 6/1 down to 2/1.
With regard to teasers, the number of teams that a bettor can pick, and the point value that a bettor can “slide” the initial line (or number), varies within each sport, and from sport to sport. Conventionally, in football wagering a bettor can slide the number 6, 6.5 or 7 points, while in basketball wagering, a bettor can typically slide each game 4, 4.5 or 5 points. Payouts vary from place to place, but are fairly similar worldwide. However, one thing that is standard throughout the sports betting industry, and current forms of software governing this type of wager, is that when a bettor teases a desired number of games a certain amount, each and every one of the selected games must be moved the same fixed pre-determined point value. In other words, whatever determined shade, or slide, value or odds improvement is being offered, that same fixed value or odds improvement must be applied to each of the individual events comprising the overall wager. The bettor is not given any input, nor any flexibility.
As previously stated, providing an increased pool of wagering options to bettors, or increased wagering flexibility, generally tends to result in growth within the wagering industry. Significantly, while a given sportsbook may have its preferred offered odds, or betting lines, bettors often have their own methods for evaluating competing teams and the resulting expected outcomes of events, which often differ from the offered odds. For this reason, bettors generally desire to have increased flexibility, and the opportunity to be given more input, or control, when placing bets, in order to place bets based more in line with their personal evaluation. Again, in accordance with the present convention for multi-layered, or multi-armed, wagers, bettors are forced to apply a fixed value to each arm of the wager. In this regard, the state-of-the-art in the multi-arm wagering industry is highly inflexible, or rigid, and completely devoid of a system and method providing bettors flexibility to account for their personal analysis and expectations when placing multi-arm wagers.
Accordingly, there is a clear, as of yet unmet, need in the multi-arm wagering industry, and particularly with regard to multi-layered type wagers in the sports event wagering industry, to afford bettors with increased flexibility to apply their personally-determined expectations when wagering, in order to benefit in instances where they feel more strongly about an individual arm of a multi-armed wager. It would be highly desirable to provide an improved wagering structure, particularly one adaptable for use by bettors utilizing a computer-implemented system for placing parlay and teaser type multi-arm wagers, which incorporates an improvement in the form of a “sliding” parlay-teaser methodology, providing bettors with the ability to modify the conventional parlay-teaser betting structure, by incorporating means for offering bettors of multi-arm sports wagers increased input, and thus control, over the application of shading vis-à-vis individual teams comprising a particular multi-team wager, resulting in proportionate winning wager payouts directly corresponding to bettor-determined shading point values and shading directional movements for individual games included in a single multi-team wager.
In stark contrast to current conventional fixed shading, which affords the bettor very limited input, an improved system and method offering bettors an opportunity to alter the shading point value and shading direction for individual arms of a multi-team wager would (no pun intended) be welcomed with open arms by the wagering community. It would be further desirable to provide such a system and method that, although adapted for use by a bettor at a particular betting site (e.g., on location at a sportsbook), is highly adaptable for use by bettors placing such wagers using mobile, or portable, electronic devices, such as, for example, smartphones, electronic tablets and the like, whereby bettors, prior to actually confirming/making a particular bettor-defined wager, are provided with visually-depicted updated odds values, in real time, as user-selected variables, such as teams picked and corresponding debit and/or credit shading values, are altered using the device. It would be preferable to provide such an improved multi-arm wagering system and method adapted for providing information required for viewing by a bettor on his or her device, in any of a myriad of easy to view graphical formats. As an option, it would be desirable to provide such a system and method that is also easily adaptable for communicating information required for a bettor to complete such an improved wager in an audible form (e.g., for visually-impaired individuals).
It would be further desirable to provide such a system and method whereby a software application, downloadable on to portable, bettor-carried or bettor-accessible devices, could communicate bi-directionally with a central system, such as, for example, a computer system operated by a sportsbook, wherein the computer system is able to host all wager-related information required to communicate, in substantially real time, updated wager information to bettor-used devices including, optionally, a sliding parlay-teaser (PARTEASER™) betting card, for example, in the format of a grid-type table incorporating the complete spectrum of sliding parlay-teaser variable combinations and respective winning wager odds.